Jesus H! Hope I'm never on the opposite carriageway from you at night!


Is your bike an import? Dipped looks very "continental".

WTF? Don't know whether to be annoyed that the bargain price I paid yesterday is now way over the odds or if I should start running the car on the stuff too.

JZS, thanks for the alert about Hein Gericke oil on half price offer.
Went down to my nearest at Farnborough this morning, they were still selling at £24 for a 4 litre carton of HG 10W 40 semi-synthetic until I suggested they look at their own website. They rang the head office who confirmed it and so they halved the price at the till. Result!
Staff didn't seem that happy: whether that is 'cos they're making no profit at that price or just pissed at head office for not keeping them informed, I didn't stop to enquire.

According to my gf, a bit of leakage around the nipples is not necessarily a sign of anything untoward and can just be a natural part of the monthly cycle.
I'm not sure she really understood the question though.

Those tyre pressures sound a bit low, I'm just two thirds of your weight and find 34/37 psi to be optimum (though best pressure will also depend on the make and model of tyre).

Hi Andrew, and welcome!
Great introduction... had to Google Angelman's, so it's been educational too.
I hope Dylan enjoys the ride. Am I right in thinking helmets are still optional on sidecars? In which case it needn't be a showstopper if he objects to the lid.


James

define average weight.
i was 102kg the last time i checked.

Blimey! So that's about 40kg more than me.
Oh well, I may be a weed, but I'll accelerate quicker.
Stick with the 36/42 suggestion and experiment, my freakishly low pressures won't suit you at all! 

That sort of thing is exactly why I hate letting anyone else touch my bike. I minimise the risk by just taking the loose wheels in to have new tyres fitted, but even then they can screw up... I've had the rim mangled by the bead-breaker and the new tyre installed backwards on more than one occasion.

Usually don't have any trouble getting the bike through the test. As Dave48 says, they're easier to check and, since things going wrong are a bit more serious when you only have two wheels, there's a good incentive for keeping an eye out for problems.


The car often fails... usually on rust or brakes. I could see the sill was going to be a problem last month and got it welded up before the MOT, the ungrateful thing then failed on the back brakes. The handbrake was working fine and the car was stopping OK, so I'd no idea it was only the front making any braking effort. Kind of illustrates why the government ditching the requirement for pre-1960s cars to have an MOT certificate is a dumb idea... some faults are hard to spot no matter how much you polish the thing.

Certain tyres are surprisingly noisy, it took me a while to get used to the racket from my BT021 front.

Another supporter of the damp kitchen roll soak technique here.
If the visor's greasy I'll use washing-up liquid... salt is soluble so doesn't scratch the visor. (The reason you don't use it on vehicles is that it accelerates rusting.)
Soap, on the other hand, can deposit calcium carbonate (same stuff as in abrasive creme cleaners) if you have hard water, which will leave smears or cause scratches.

VNA: I thought that was the Parochial House on Craggy Island.
Tori: I'm sure that in the time you've spent on here explaining why you're too busy to post anything... you could have found an image and posted it.


Anyway, here's one I took in March while the bike was undergoing an MOT.



OK, not especially old... but has quite a creepy atmosphere about it (like most abandoned industrial buildings). I guess it was built in the 60's when that part of the Blackwater Valley near Ash was being used for gravel extraction. The resulting holes in the ground are now fishing lakes, there is a chain of them stretching from south of Aldershot all the way to Finchamstead with the odd gap where towns got in the way.

I agree with Gnasher, those calipers are superb. Mine are still performing brilliantly despite having covered an impressive mileage.


It can take a long time to get discs bedded in. I changed mine last October and opted for EBC discs and pads.
They were a bit grabby at low speeds at first and the discs rusted like crazy and would stick hard to the pads when parked overnight if there was any hint of dampness. Oddly, they're now fine, nice and progressive and they don't rust... but it took about 3000 miles of use before they started behaving themselves.


It sounds as though you've eliminated a lot of potential causes, though I do wonder how you can maintain the flatness of the disc to better than 0.001" when rubbing them down with sandpaper.
I'd more suspect the torsional rigidity of the front forks than the calipers. If there's something amiss with the inner surface where the axle clamps them together via the spacer/sleeve and speedo housing then they could rotate slightly in response to the torque applied by the brakes. Maybe that could provoke some sort of resonance effect that then buggers up the discs.